Social Justice Event: Hidden Figures

       On Saturday October 6, 2018 Nadia and I watched the film Hidden Figures for our Social Justice event. The movie is about three African Americans making a difference while working in NASA. This movie is based on a true story and takes place during the 1960's. While watching this film I learned that during the 60's NASA had a building just for the African Americans and that building was the only building that had a colored bathroom. The building was on the outskirts of the grounds and if one of them was working in the main building they would have to walk a half a mile in order to go to the bathroom. There are three main characters one of the main characters Katherine Johnson was confronted by her boss because she was always gone when she was needed. She told him that in order for her to go to the bathroom she would have to run a half a mile and that no one would refill the colored coffee pot because they were afriad to touch it. After Katherine went back to her building Al Harrison went to the colored building and knocked off the colored sign on the bathroom. He told the girls to use any bathroom that they wanted and told Katherine that he needed her so she can go to the bathrrom closer to the room that they were working in. I did not know that someone could do that because I thought that the government were the only one that could do that. Katherine went on to become to preform the calculations for Apollo II mission to the moon and te space shuttle. Another main character Mary Johnson was an engineer and was assigned as an engineer for NASA. In order to keep her position at NASA she needed to further her education but the unviserity that she needed to attend was for only white men. She brough her case to the court and she won the case. Mary was able to attend the white only unveristy only for night school but she was the first African American at Virginia Unveristy. She went on to become the first African American aeronautical engineer. The last main character was Dorothy Vaughan and she was in charge of the African American women that were working for NASA. They did not have a supevisor in the African American building so Dorothy was doing the job but no one would assugn her the supervisor offically because they did not want an African American supervisor. NASA got a IBM machine but none of the white men could figure out how to make it work. Dorothy got the machine working all by herself and the white men were shocked that she was abke to get it going and working correctly. She was NASAs first African American supervisor and was regarded as one of the most brilliant minds at NASA. I loved this movie and I highly recomend it to everyone. I had no idea that this happened at NASA.
     
       This movie and the Kozol article connect because in the Kozol article talks about the bad conditions that people have to live in. None of the upper class could care less about those neighborhoods because they do not want those bad people in their streets. In Hidden Figures the African Americans were segrated from society and were not allowed to do the same things as the upper class white men and women can. In both the article and the movie the white upper class neighborhoods and building were much nicer than what the African Americans and the poor community. In the Kozol article the lower class did not recieve any kind of help from any other neighborhoods and it would take more than just one person to help the neighborhood out of poverty. In the Movie it took an army of strong women inorder to get things changed.
     
     The All Live Matter article connects with the movie for many reasons. The main reason why these things connect well because in the article it says in the title that All Loves Matter and in the movie the three African Americans got the message across that anyone no matter the color of their skin everyone matters. The movie and the article have the same message of no matter what someone looks like they matter and no one should tel them other wise.

     MacIntosh and the movie also have strong connections as well. In both and the movie There will always be a struggle of power but that power can be seperated between people. Some people do not like to share that power because someone will also believe that they deserve all the power. In the movie Paul Stafford thought that since he was a white male in the 60's that he had power over Katherine Johnson because she was an African American women. As the movie went on he started to see that he needed to share that power over Katherine.

These are the three women that the move was based on. Katherine Johnson, Mary Johnson, and Dorothy Vaughan.

      NASA ended up joing the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's and the arrticle goes into detail on how they joined the movement. https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/how-nasa-joined-civil-rights-revolution-180949497/

     This website goes into more detail about the three amazing women in the movie Hidden Figures and how they were treated during the time.  https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a24429/hidden-figures-real-story-nasa-women-computers/

     
     One website that I found is about four African Americans and their path they took while working at NASA. It is a podcast that goes into detail about what these four individuals went though and how they got there.   https://www.nasa.gov/johnson/HWHAP/african-american-history-month